CJA/214
Policing In American Society The United States government and the police must have a relationship because the laws and how the American criminal justice system is set up and ran. The rights of the people are established by the government and in most cases have to be carried out and enforced by local police. The local police vary from size throughout the United States. As the government set out to make new laws, it is the police who have to make sure that laws are being followed. The police also have a professional obligation to the public and the first component of the Criminal Justice system is the police, and different levels of policing focus on different levels of crime. The United States government has policing on the federal, state, and local level. A local law enforcement agency can run from a huge local police department to a small local police department depending on the number of people living in the community or jurisdiction of that police department. Next, would be policing on the state level, this would be your state troopers. The state police are mostly seen on the highways, but they have other duties that go beyond jus t regulating our highway. Last would be federal police agencies, federal agencies have the responsibility to enforce the laws that are only on the federal level, but unlike state and local police, federal agencies have nationwide jurisdiction. Overall the Government makes the laws for these different police agencies to enforce, the relationship between the government and police seems to be an up and down situation. The police system is not perfect and at times those imperfections in the system show because of this it makes it hard for policing around the United States. Throughout the years because of the corruption and wrong doings in some police agencies for the most part the government has to take a neutral stance in the way they follow up on police misconduct and wrong doing within
References: Schmalleger, F. (2009). Criminal Justice Today. An Introductory Text for the 21st Century, Tenth Edition (10th Ed.). Retrieved from The University of Phoenix eBook collection. Criminal Justice Today. (2001). U.S. Department of Justice. (2011). Retrieved from http://www.justice.gov/